Venison Nutrition Facts | Outdoor Life

It’s an attention-grabbing time on this planet of meat. Last month well-liked TikTok personalities started selling the lion food regimen—consuming nothing however ruminant animals and salt—which prompted a flurry of news stories. This month, Joe Rogan, the largest podcaster in America, is posting about World Carnivore Month, which is a “month throughout which anybody with expertise of selecting a meat-only food regimen goals to deliver extra consideration to their way of life and food regimen,” in line with carnivorestyle.com.

With all of this consideration on purple meat, an increasing number of of us have gotten taken with venison. As hunters, everyone knows the overall advantages of untamed venison: it’s lean, it tastes good, and it comes from a critter that hasn’t been fed supplemental hormones. But amid all the thrill over the opposite purple meat, it appears that evidently loads of misconceptions and misunderstandings are cropping up.

I’m not a meals scientist, however I’m a deer hunter who’s eaten venison ever since I’ve had tooth to chew it with. I’m additionally recovering from Alpha Gal, and venison is likely one of the few mammal meats I can eat (due to its decrease fats content material), so I eat a ton of it. Here are a number of venison vitamin info, plus info about wild deer meat that I hope deliver some gravity to the present meat craze.

Venison Is Good for You

Eating venison won’t flip you right into a shredded tremendous predator, however it’s a wholesome selection for meat eaters. According to Penn State University: “Venison is excessive in important amino acids and as well as, a wealthy supply of thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, iron, and zinc. Venison meat is an ideal selection of protein for many who endure from heart problems and are trying to find low ldl cholesterol and saturated fats protein selections.”

Just three ounces of venison accommodates 96 energy 3 grams of fats, and 18 grams of protein. Put plainly, venison is “wealthy.” Which is why you would possibly end up consuming a smaller serving of backstrap than you’d when digging right into a beef steak.

Venison Is Leaner Than Beef

One of the well being points with wolfing down purple meat is the quantity of saturated fat they comprise. But as a result of deer are surviving within the wild and consuming a considerably wild food regimen (extra on this later) their meat is leaner than home beef. “A 4-ounce serving of beef flank steak has greater than 9 grams of whole fats, and practically 4 of these grams are saturated. Venison accommodates 3 grams of whole fats and just one of these grams is saturated,” in line with a report in SFGate.

Most Wild Venison Is Probably Not Organic

When individuals get to selling the advantages of consuming wild sport, they usually fall again on buzz phrases like “free-range” and “natural.” These phrases have grow to be shorthand for saying a sure kind of meals is superior to its non-organic counterpart. But there are actual standards for organic produce and livestock, even when most individuals don’t know what they’re. One of the necessities is that “producers should feed livestock agricultural feed merchandise which are 100% natural,” which suggests no artificial herbicides. In different phrases, to ensure that meat to be natural the animal can’t be fed something that was sprayed with Roundup. Since Roundup is still extremely popular in commercial farming (and habitat management work), there’s an excellent likelihood that any whitetail deer you kill has eaten corn or beans that had been sprayed with herbicide. Sure, there are some exceptions for deer which are killed deep within the Northwoods, removed from agricultural land. But since whitetails thrive in edge habitat and agricultural lands and their dwelling ranges span a number of hundred acres, many of the whitetails we harvest and eat can have eaten non-organic crops. That’s to not say that venison is by some means tainted. It’s simply not a wonderfully pure meat as some of us like to say.

Despite Chronic Wasting Disease, Venison Is Safe

On the opposite finish of the spectrum, there are numerous of us who fear about Chronic Wasting Disease in venison. And when you learn the CDC web page on the topic, you’d have causes to be nervous. Guidelines embrace: “Minimize how a lot you deal with the organs of the animal” and “If you might have your deer or elk commercially processed, take into account asking that your animal be processed individually to keep away from mixing meat from a number of animals.”

However, there has by no means been a documented case of a human turning into contaminated with CWD. Chronic losing illness has unfold by most of deer nation, and most hunters who harvest deer don’t get their animals examined (although they need to), so an untold variety of individuals have eaten CWD contaminated meat with none documented penalties. In one infamous case, a CWD contaminated deer was fed to a couple hundred individuals throughout a banquet in 2005 (they came upon solely after the banquet that the deer was CWD constructive). About 80 of these individuals agreed to a well being monitoring program, and over the course of six years it was decided that the members had “no vital adjustments in well being circumstances.” CWD is a critical wildlife illness. It’s the biggest threat to deer in America. But it hasn’t jumped the species barrier, a minimum of not but. That mentioned, any state sport company would counsel not consuming meat that’s identified to be contaminated with CWD.

The Experts Want You to Overcook Venison (for Safety)

I used to be stunned and appalled that organizations from my dwelling state of Minnesota counsel cooking the hell out of venison. The University of Minnesota Extension recommends cooking venison steaks to 145 levels. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture recommends cooking venison to a minimum of 165 levels to kill micro organism. That’s past medium uncommon. I pull my steaks once they hit an inner temperature of 135ish, after which that temp usually creeps up a number of levels whereas resting. I’ve by no means had a problem, and neither have any of the opposite hunters I do know. That mentioned, it’s attainable to get salmonella and other illnesses from venison, however these instances are fairly uncommon. The smartest thing you are able to do is use good gutting and butchering practices. Keep the meat, your instruments, and your palms clear and also you’ll be simply wonderful.

You Can’t Buy the Real Thing

The venison you see at fancy grocery shops or at costly eating places just isn’t the identical kind of venison you’d discover in a hunter’s freezer. Much of the store-bought or restaurant-served venison is definitely farmed purple stag from New Zealand. Under the Lacey Act, it’s unlawful to promote wild sport meat, so wild deer meat isn’t hitting the cabinets anyplace within the United States.

Not All of Us Can Be Lions

If you need the actual factor, it’s a must to get on the market and hunt it (or have a beneficiant hunter give it to you). But Americans eat greater than 200 kilos of meat per yr on common (that’s together with beef, pork, and poultry). Just for the sake of argument, let’s say all of us switched to solely venison for our supply of meat. That would imply we’d want about 3 deer per American grownup per yr. Unfortunately, there are much more individuals (about 209 million) than there are whitetail deer (about 30 million) on this nation. So it will take us lower than a yr to eat all the nation’s whitetails, to not point out elk, pronghorns, and mule deer.

It’s merely unfeasible for many Americans to outlive on venison alone (and even have it grow to be a significant a part of their food regimen). So for these of us who do eat venison for almost all of our meals, we should always do our greatest to take pleasure in each chew.